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Chapter 5. Some Personal Milestones

The yoga camp that I attended in 1994 was, in a way, a turning point in my life. It changed my belief system regarding the road map to follow for attaining better health. The only options (for good health) till then were to exercise regularly and to eat proper food.

This camp was an eye opener of sorts as I also started looking at mental peace as being an intrinsic aspect of good health. This was something that I had heard about earlier too, but had not really focused upon and therefore not understood properly.

You can say that I was ready for change too as I had realized by then that exercising regularly was not really helping in boosting my energy levels as all I wanted to do after a good workout was to sleep. The thought of totally avoiding ‘junk food’ was again not a viable and practical option, considering the life style that I was leading.

Relaxed mind and an increased energy level were the direct benefits of Meditation, Pranayama, Yoga and a bit of raw food. This in turn helped me become more productive professionally as the low energy levels and the constantly stressed up mind were not really helping my growth and were huge obstacles in my path.

The downside of becoming busier was that I ended up devoting lesser and lesser time to Meditation and Pranayama. This brought me back to square one in a couple of years but now with the realization that I could not blame anyone else but myself for the stressful state that I found myself back in all over again.

The freedom to be able to do something for my mental peace (and therefore better health) twenty four hours a day and even while watching TV, was what attracted me to the Reiki system of healing (in 1996) initially. The miraculous results during the first month’s practice strengthened my belief in the system. But the first brush with detoxification almost turned me off from Reiki too.

It was after a few days of learning my Second Degree that I started experiencing severe headaches almost every waking moment of my life. I discussed this with the seniors in the field and was told that my system was getting cleansed and that it would eventually ease up in a few days and was the best thing to be happening for me. The pains lasted for about a couple of weeks to be replaced with a strangely good feeling of joy and elation.

That set up the cycles for detoxification which were essentially days when I was feeling low followed with periods of inner peace and feelings of wellness. This has been the norm ever since. Life is like riding a roller coaster, even today.

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There were other episodes of detoxification / cleansing too but the one that stands out happened on a Sunday afternoon while I was doing my full body healing session.

The fact was that I had been carrying an old injury in the form of a twisted ankle sustained during a trekking incident in the year 1980 while walking in the mountains of Kashmir during my Engineering College days. It was not a major problem in life but still was an irritant as my ankle would start hurting without any reason and without any kind of warning; while walking up a flight of stairs or while driving, for instance. The awareness that this was lurking in the background was also not allowing me to live my life the way I wanted to.

Anyway, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon when I was doing my self healing, this ankle started hurting in a way that it had never hurt before. ‘Beautiful’ because along with the hurt, there was this realization that the intense pain that I was going through was perhaps the last time that this ankle was going to bother me ever in my life. Increasing the energy healing with the active assistance of my wife in that very moment helped and the pain was gone after about half an hour or forty five minutes. It has not come back ever since. This healing experience happened sometime around end of 1996 or early 1997.

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The next important healing experience that I wish to share happened on 29 October 2002.

I was sitting doing some work on my home PC when I started sweating on my palms, my armpits and in my groin region. It was accompanied by pain on the left side of my chest and I could sense darkness surrounding me. This, according to the knowledge available, was what people usually experienced at the onset of a ‘heart attack’. I have a family history of heart condition as my father passed away because of one and my mother had already undergone a by-pass surgery by then. I called my wife, asked her to call a doctor and help me with Reiki healing while I lay down and started my self healing. The positive thing was that I did not panic as there was this thought too that I was going through another experience of detoxification. Well, the doctor came, took an ECG and diagnosed it as a condition of ‘Unstable Angina’. He recommended that I be hospitalized in an ICU. I followed his advice and was kept under observation overnight and was discharged the next morning. The doctors endorsed that I was healthier than most my age.

Since then I have experienced shooting pain in the chest region, with the intensity being a few notches higher than this one, on several occasions. A bit of deep breathing/self healing has always helped to ease the pain in a few minutes. I now know that the increased pain is an indicator of my system getting cleansed and so the pain is not an issue at all. The mind being at peace while accepting this fact has stopped these incidents from turning into full fledged ‘Heart Attacks’. I have not sought medical help during these subsequent sessions. However, this is not meant to be taken as an advice by those in a similar situation – if there is even a bit of fear within while experiencing chest pain, then you must seek medical help immediately. The fact is that pain, any pain, is a god gift telling us to take it easy and give that part of the body some rest. This would then allow the energies to flow and let the body self-heal. Fractures heal on their own provided the involved bones are not disturbed. So does any other part of the body if allowed to. The point I am trying to make is that pain in the chest region is almost always accompanied by a bit of fear in the mind. In my opinion, this takes the energy away from the body to the mind thereby interfering in the natural flow of energies. We do not panic while experiencing pain in the knee or back or head, for example. These pains therefore are not of consequence in the short term. Human minds have been conditioned to look at pain in the chest region as something very, very serious happening. Therefore, I too recommend that immediate medical help be taken whenever there is fear along with the chest pain.

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Another long term healing experience has happened without my even realizing that it was taking place.

Family vacations since 1993 have meant choosing a destination, packing the stuff in our car and hitting the road. The whole family loves it, so it has not been a problem ever. The only problem that I used to experience was in the form of a swollen and painful right knee after about two hours at the steering wheel. A couple of minutes walking around and flexing the right leg was the instant remedy and has always worked. This painful knee has, therefore, never interfered with our many road-trips.

It was during the last family vacation (Diwali time 2009) that I noticed that the right knee was not bothering me anymore. We drove about 1000 kms to Delhi in one day and then to Chandigarh the next day and from there to Chail, the day after. I realized that I did not need to stop my car even once on account of my knee. The return trip from Delhi to Ahmedabad was even better as I drove non-stop, other than a fuel and washroom stop, for about six hundred kilometers without my knee bothering me at all.

This was a huge thing for me as the situation that had been causing a bit of pain since 1993 has been healed. Whatever it was in the body and mind that was creating this pain had the potential to become much bigger along with the ageing process. But, I can safely state with full confidence that this potential has also been taken care of and will not bother me again.

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The point I am trying to make here is that some kind of Discomfort is generally inevitable when the Body goes through Detoxification. This is an integral part of the process of the Human Body’s ability to Self-Heal.

It is not happening more often because human minds have been conditioned to reject discomfort and seek medical advice at the slightest sign of uneasiness, distress or anxiety. The accompanying fear invariably then interferes with the flow of energy in the system and stops the body from becoming healthier – naturally.

The fact that most of my experiences occurred while I was extensively doing self healing with Reiki does not mean that this is the only path to wellness.

Detoxification is an integral part of the healing process whatever may be the modality of energy working – be it Pranayama, Yoga, Meditation, Reiki, Crystal Therapy, regular Exercise, Eating better quality of Food or simply Deep Breathing. An open mind is necessary, that’s all which then lets the energies to flow where most needed. This then allows the body to self-heal. I am positive that all so called imbalances including those called chronic can be taken care of, only if we allow it to happen.